Thursday, 28 May 2009

All round, May’s been a pretty good month for Rob ‘Pinch’ Ellis. The launch of Tectonics’ second compilation and a coinciding launch night at The Arches in London Bridge resulted in a large degree of positive press, blog and message-board attention. Many of the press articles took the opportunity to not only just review the LP or preview the event, but to look back at the Bristolian’s crucial influence on the genre’s development over the last four years. FACT Magazine felt so strongly for the cause, that they even felt it necessary to suddenly declare that 2007’s ‘Underwater Dancehall’ was the joint-best dubstep album yet made. Perhaps an overdramatic statement, but if the widespread-recognition continues, Pinch will soon be replacing Kode 9 as the scene’s leader.

Taking the momentum into June, but having a breather from his own imprints, Pinch releases the curiously named ‘Attack of The Giant Killer Robot Spiders’ on Planet Mu. Possibly in reference to the awesome 30-foot machine that terrorised Liverpool late last year, but still not the easiest title to deliver in a straight-faced manner. Those expecting a dubstep track with such a title to be a sci-fi themed, wobble-assault won’t be experiencing anything of such an up-front nature. Instead this is a fractured voyage into broken percussion that if anything is more atmospheric than many of the Bristolain’s tracks to date. Obviously keen to continue his recent explorations into the experimental, ‘Spiders’ is rhythmically off-kilter throughout with a tripping beat-pattern reminiscent of mid-noughties future-jazz. Initially somewhat rudderless, depth and added-chug builds with every thirty-seconds that passes, until a pulsating bassline finally thrusts things forward into an ambient, yet almost-hydraulic crescendo.

The B-side, ‘Teleportation’ continues the vibe, but is all-round a more levelled affair that may be the pick for purists who prefer the producer’s more straight-forward Tectonic releases to date. Overall, this 12” perfectly demonstrates an exciting artist at the very top of his game, who isn’t scared to experiment and break even further away from the original South-London blueprint.